The final report of the Open Library Environment project is available for reading. ♥ this project with its focus on the behind the scenes… because if the behind the scenes (processing system/database/data) doesn’t work very well, the public interface is not going to work very well. I am definitely keeping an eye on this project and I hope to be able to contribute in some way in the future.

A few points of interest (amongst many….)

The project planners chose to define a system that supports libraries as a central player in the research process.

Libraries need to be able to leverage a dynamic information environment to support the research and educational mission of their institutions.

Libraries must respond to the dynamic information environment by re-engineering its organization and the workflows carried out by its personnel.

I don’t know if these statements are Yays or DUHs, because they seem so obvious, yet some do not grasp that simple reality of library catalog software and library information silos such as databases, websites, etc.

About the Open Library Environment Project:With support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a multinational group of libraries is developing the design for an Open Library Environment (OLE), an alternative to the current model of an Integrated Library System. The goal is to produce a design document to inform open source library system development efforts, to guide future library systemimplementations, and to influence current Integrated Library System vendor products.

* Peer reviews give credibility to an author’s work. * Journals and conferences can use this tool to indicate acceptance of a paper. * Researchers can also give credibility to each other by reviewing each others’ works. * This enables researchers to publish first, and review later. * It meshes seamlessly with existing publication venues. Even the credibility of works that have already been published can be enhanced by obtaining additional peer reviews. * A decentralized social-network of reviewers and papers is naturally formed by this process. The structure of this network reflects that of the research

If you’ve not heard of the openlibrary.org initiative, the idea is “one web pagefor every book ever published.”

A pretty noble undertaking….Anyhow, news is that have now have a total of 13.4 million books,with about 18 million more records to go.Of course quantity and quality are not the same. ;-DAs for where these records are coming from, they have startedmerging library records with other book data (vendor data?)

If you’ve not heard of the openlibrary.org initiative, the idea is “one web pagefor every book ever published.”

A pretty noble undertaking….Anyhow, news is that have now have a total of 13.4 million books,with about 18 million more records to go.Of course quantity and quality are not the same. ;-DAs for where these records are coming from, they have startedmerging library records with other book data (vendor data?)